Gabriella Hernandez—known to her friends as Riel—almost wishes she could stay in prison. At least there she has steady meals, and a girlfriend who loves her. Even a cold cell is better than what’s waiting for her on the outside. The only people she looks forward to seeing in her normal life are her sister, Lizette, and her green-eyed best friend and former drug-running partner, Evan.

Drugs, danger, and a hot spark of romance…

Upon release, Riel has no choice but to go back to work for her brother-in-law, Isaias. This time, instead of running drugs, he forces her to work in his strip club where she gets a lousy ten percent of her tips. The daily dose of threats and coercion chains her to this place. And, if she makes a run for it, she’d be abandoning everyone she loves. With Isaias’ spies and henchmen everywhere, there’s nowhere to run.

A crooked cop, a setup, and hope for a real life…

Evan is able to smuggle her out of the city, but it isn’t long before Riel’s fears come true. After a bloody shootout with Isais’ men lands Evan at death’s door, it’s up to her to get them out of this deadly game, and into the quiet life they’ve always wanted. With the help of a crooked cop and the FBI, she concocts a plan. If it succeeds, Isaias goes to prison for life, and she and Evan get immunity from prosecution. If she fails, she may die—along with Evan, her sister, and countless others.

With eyes all over and the FBI involved, will Riel pull off the sting operation?

ELIZABETH RODERICK grew up as a barefoot ruffian on a fruit orchard near Yakima, in the eastern part of Washington State. After weathering the grunge revolution and devolution in Olympia, Washington, Portland, Oregon and Seattle, she recently moved to the (very, very) small town of Shandon, California: a small cluster of houses amidst the vineyards of the Central Coast.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, and worked for many years as a paralegal and translator. She went on to study chemistry, physics, and higher mathematics, with the goal of becoming a research chemist, but was eventually forced to concede that graduate school would require too much time away from her husband and daughter, and that–despite her good-enough grades –she was perhaps the wrong kind of nerd for such pursuits, being more the type that likes to dress in cloaks and hauberks rather than lab coats and goggles.

She is a musician and songwriter, and has played in many bands. She’s rocked pretty much every instrument, including some she doesn’t even know the real names for, but mostly guitar, bass and keyboards. She has two albums of her own, which you can listen to at pimentointhehole.com. She writes fiction novels for young adults and adults, as well as short stories, and keeps an active blog at pimentointhehole.com/blog.